Perhaps even more astonishingly, Ledecky is so good that her fellow swimmers have a hilariously low bar for what they consider to be a successful race against her. Twenty-one-year-old Leah Smith gave Ledecky chase throughout the race, finishing at 4:00.65 — under two seconds behind Ledecky. Afterward, Smith described her second-place finish, summarizing how dominant Ledecky is (emphasis ours):

"I had never been able to see her feet before [in a race], so that was pretty exciting," Smith said. "My goal wasn't really to stay with her because that would be stupid."

Even Ledecky had to take some pride in her below-par time, saying afterward: "That's fast. That's three seconds faster than anybody else in the world. I think we're going to really represent the US well in that event."

If disappointing for Ledecky is a near world record, she's going to come home from Rio with a lot of medals.